It’s educate, AGITATE, organize
edit: putting this at the top so people understand the basis for this:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
It bothers me, but it also bothers me that my own representative is supporting fascism himself.
It clearly doesn’t bother you enough to stop you from working to see the fascist elected so the representative supporting longstanding-but-dogshite-foreign-policy can ‘learn his lesson’.
I don’t think he ought to lose because of this issue, I think he’ll lose because of this issue all on his own.
You’re free to disagree with the method of agitation but it comforts me (barely) that you would at least still support him if he were to change his position on this. It’s my bet most people on the fence would, too.
No, you don’t think he ‘ought’ to, you’re just Doing Your Part to make sure he does. Like drilling holes in a boat to protest the captain bailing water instead of filling the holes.
SUNKEN SHIP 2024
This is such a terrible metaphor. A good metaphor is one that cant easily be reversed.
Example: Netanyahu is drilling holes, and I’m (both) bailing water (by voting) and also yelling at Biden he should stop Netanyahu, and Biden is sitting calmly on the other side of the boat denying any holes are being drilled at all.